


That Brief Orange Light

by Rivine



Category: Zone Blanche | Black Spot (TV)
Genre: Came back the same but REALLY doesn't want to be back, F/M, Fade to Black, Having Sex Doesn't Fix Character's Problems But Does Provide A Distraction, Mentor/Protégé
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 03:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivine/pseuds/Rivine
Summary: Camille returns to her body, and everything she left behind.





	That Brief Orange Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StopTalkingAtMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/gifts).

Camille stood, confused and frightened, knee-deep in the murky water. She startled at a black fluttering, but it was only a feather, caught by the wind and dancing toward her. There were more all around her, scattered in a wide black circle, floating on the water and strewn over the tussocks of brittle grass.

“Camille?”

She turned, the water lapping against her legs and sending a cold shiver up her body.

Hermann was there, staring at her with a look of hope that was unbearable. She opened her mouth but no words would come out. What could she even say?

Hermann sloshed towards her and wrapped her in a hug. It was the warmth and familiarity of it that put her over the edge. She leaned her head against the canvas of his old brown coat and sobbed into his shoulder.

“It’s all right,” Hermann murmured, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head. “You’re fine now, and it’ll be all right.”

Camille cried harder, because it wouldn’t be; it could never be all right again.

“I didn’t mean to kill her,” she choked out. Her knees buckled as she realized she had to qualify her denial. Hermann held her tighter to keep her from falling into the water. “Marion. I only wanted to stop her.”

“Shhhh, Camille. I know,” Hermann told her.

“The Major…” she whispered. “I shot her.” She remembered taking aim, the blood, and the limpness of Laurène’s still-warm body as she rolled her down the hillside into the forest.

“You’re alive now,” Hermann said, a crack in his voice. “Don’t worry about the rest.”

“I meant to kill Cora,” Camille said. The stinking, muddy water had been cold on her arms, until the crows descended on her and blotted out everything else. Camille had died with their cries ringing in her ears, her blood seeping out along with her guilt.

“We’ll fix it,” Hermann promised. “You’re back, and that’s all that matters, love. We’ll deal with the rest.”

“I can’t fix it,” she cried, her sobs weakening as the first rush of panic faded into duller dread. “I can never fix it. I shouldn’t be here, Louis.”

“No, no, don’t say that,” he said, voice choked. “Not when I’ve just gotten you back.”

“But at least it was over. What am I supposed to do now?”

“You come home with me,” Hermann said, “and we get you into dry clothes, and them maybe have something to drink. God knows I could use a drink. What do you think of that, eh?”

“I think it’s going to take a lot more than that to make me feel any better,” Camille said, but she straightened up and tried to sniff back the last of her tears.

“It’s a start, though,” Hermann told her, with a watery smile.

***

“I saw you,” Hermann said, after the heater had kicked in and the car was warm enough to stop Camille from shivering. Hermann had been wearing the hip waders he used for fishing, and was dry as a bone. Camille was soaked halfway up her thighs from an unexpected deep spot.

“I talked to you,” he added. “When you were…”

“When I was dead,” Camille said for him.

He was quiet for a moment, and then agreed, “When you were dead. Was that— were you—” He took a deep breath. “Damnit, Camille, was it just the Hunter’s Moon sending me around the bend?”

He glanced at her, and then quickly back at the road. The grief on his face made her heart ache. It was a physical pain, a lump caught in her chest. It was as if, now that she was alive again, the full weight of her anguish could settle onto her shoulders. She had thought the guilt and shame was bad when she was dead and had seen her choices through to their terrible, bitter end, but it hadn’t hurt this much then. Even the fear that Hermann hated her for what she had done hadn’t been able to touch her as deeply as it did now.

“No,” she said. “You weren’t crazy.”

He nodded, once. “It’ll be all right,” he told her again, and put his hand on hers.

*** 

Hermann’s house was cold after the warm car, and Hermann set about lighting a fire while Camille headed to the bathroom to wash the marsh water off of herself.

The damp fabric clung to her legs as she tried to peel off her trousers, and the smell of the bog rose up around her. She hurried into the shower.

The hot water helped clear the memory of a cold grey sky and clammy mist out of her head, but she was forced to confront the red scars on her stomach. Bracing herself, she ran her hands over them, feeling where the antler tines had sunk into her body. Her tentative fingers found matching spots on her back: smooth, raised circles that were numb to the touch.

Marion had ripped up Camille’s conscience as she fell; Laurène had sent a crack through her heart when she turned and saw the gun—the marks Cora had left on her skin could hardly compare. Camille had come apart long before she died.

And now she was faced with living that way, because she couldn’t imagine ever being able to put the pieces back together. She had studied for her OPJ exam in this house—staying over with Hermann so she could focus and ask him for help—but she would never take it now. Her future was gone. She had committed murder. She had spied on her colleagues. On Hermann.

Camille unraveled her braid and let the water run through her hair. She scrubbed soap over her body, and dug the dirt out from under her fingernails. On the outside, she was clean.

She went to the stack of neatly-folded clothes Hermann had found for her, the ones she had left when things were still normal, when her worst fear was a score low enough to disappoint both herself and Hermann. She hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the folds of her blue sweater. She had thrown away everything for one bad choice after another, so why not risk the last thing she had left?

She left the clothes were they were, and wrapped the towel around herself.

Hermann was feeding larger pieces of wood into the wood stove when she came out of the bathroom.

“Need that drink right away, then?” he asked her, trying to lighten the mood.

“I need you,” she told him. “Come on, Louis,” she said when he looked surprised, “I’m not so bad a cop that I can’t figure out what we’ve both been wanting.”

“And we both know it would be a bad idea,” he said, but his voice was sad, and reluctant. “That’s why we haven’t.”

“I’ve crossed so many lines all on my own. Colleague to spy, innocent to murderer. Alive to dead.” She put her hands on his shoulders, ran them up his neck to his cheeks. “I want to cross this one with you.” She added, half joking, half keeping herself from falling back into the cold misery of what she’d done, “It’s a lot better than the others, isn’t it? Friends to lovers?”

“Camille…” Louis said. “Ah, damnit, what can it hurt now?”

He leaned forward, into her hands, and kissed her. She kissed back, the warmth of his hands on her shoulders easing into her bones in a way the heat of the shower had not. She pulled him closer, pressing up against him and letting the relief of it flow through her.

It was wonderful to sink herself into kissing Hermann, to fumbling at the zipper of his coat and peeling back the layers of his clothing. She had wanted it for so long, and finally doing it was enough to sweep away everything else. It lifted the weight on her shoulders and let her set aside the guilt and shame, like the sun rising bright and golden after the dark, cold night, or like black, dying coals being blown back into life.

She could forget about her choices, in that brief orange light before the sun set again and the embers died, and she was left to live with what she’d done.


End file.
